Blog Post

A lot of people are looking at activating AirPrint on the new Snow Leopard 10.6.5… but it requires a tedious terminal session.

So I followed a link from a tuaw.com post to the 3 files required and wrote a small wrapper around them to make the installation easier. The application is called AirPrintHacktivator and can be downloaded on this page. The application allow you to “Hacktivate” and “De Hacktivate” AirPrint by adding or removing the 3 files required… all of this while making a backup of the current files so they are properly restored during “De Hacktivation”.

What you need?

An iPhone or iPad with 4.2GM

A Mac with Snow Leopard 10.6.5 installed

iTunes 10.1+ installed

AirPrintHacktivator

The application will attempt to detect if you have the right combination of OS and iTunes.

WARNING! USE AT YOUR OWN RISK! It is working fine for me but don’t come crying if it break something on your Mac… mmmkay!

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UPDATE: Added iTunes 10.1 beta 2 to the requirement’s list and general fix-ups here and there.

UPDATE 2: Added link to source of 3 files from original tuaw.com post in case one wonder.

UPDATE 3: iTunes 10.1 is now officially available. I am away so I can’t test if it will bring full AirPrint support without the need for this hack. I really hope it will…

I notice you refer to the printer as wifi. I have an HP Color Laserjet 3600N hooked up to my Airport Extreme using Ethernet cable. Will this Hack work for my printer as long as I have my mac up and running on the network, via Airport wifi? My printer is shared within my local network. Thanks in advance for any input from you.

I purchased an Epson NX420 with my MacBook. As others must have been before me, I was disappointed to say the least that it did not support “Airprint”. I guess I just assumed that if Apple was pushing the product it would “Airprint”. Downloaded your gizmo and I had a hot copy in my hand printed from my Ipad in about 30 seconds mmmkay. Well done!

Works fine from my MacBook Pro, but my iPad still can’t detect any AirPrint printers. Do I need to download anything to my iPad or should it just see the printer once I got it working on the MacBook? Great hack btw!